While undergrads during the 2000 school year, brothers Andy Cecere,
Ben Eltz, Matt Shaner, and Rich Hoffacker decided to start a
philanthropy at the Omicron Chapter to benefit the national fraternity
target cause, The Hole in the Wall Gang Camps.  Ben and Andy had been
heavily involved in the Pennsylvania soccer community and saw a large
need for a well run youth soccer tournament.

Youth soccer tournaments take place over a weekend in the summer and
are for children ages 9-19.  The participating soccer teams play in
local leagues during the spring and fall.  The soccer clubs operate
very similar to little league baseball.  After the league play is
finished, these teams typically pick one or two summer tournaments to
travel to and play in each year.

Each team pays an entry fee to play in the tournament (typically about
$25 per player).  The tournament organizers then secure fields to play
on, make schedules, coordinate referees, and execute the actual event.
 There are hundreds of tournaments across the east coast each year,
many of which are run by for-profit organizations.

The first tournament organized by the Omicron men took place in
Hershey in the summer of 2000.  Since then, they have raised nearly
$50,000 for The Hole in the Wall Gang Camps.  This past summer, the
Hershey tournament drew a record crowd of 200 soccer teams which
equates to 8000 participants.  Additionally, the men successfully
started a second tournament consisting of 65 teams held on the Penn
State campus and benefiting local children served by the Centre County
United Way.

The tournaments are gaining popularity within the soccer community and
are growing very quickly.  From 2006 to 2007 the total number of teams
participating in the tournaments grew 88% from 141 to 265.  With this
growth, more time and effort was necessary to administer and organize
the event.  The men were faced with the decision to continue
organizing one annual event relying exclusively on volunteer time or
to take the next step and duplicate the event at other sites, putting
in place a sustainable infrastructure that will outlast each of their
ability to volunteer.  The men chose the later, and incorporated Kicks
4 Kids Charity Soccer Tournaments in April and are awaiting 501(c)(3)
approval from the IRS.  Ben has left his job at Ingersoll-Rand to
become the sole employee of Kicks 4 Kids.  The four men now sit on the
Board of Directors of the corporation, along with a fifth director
from State College, Pat Joliet.

A conversation in the foyer of 408 East Fairmount has led to an event
that annually reaches 10,000 people, but this success story is not yet
finished.  The men need your help in two ways.  First, they always
need volunteers to help out at the actual tournaments.  Mark your
calendars now for the 2008 tournaments: Hershey on June 14-15th, and
Penn State on June 28-29th.  Next, this year the men will have to
clear a significant financial hurdle.  The transition from a single
event run by volunteers to a multi-tournament sustainable organization
requires some "seed" capital to fund operations.  They are in
currently in a position where it is not possible to run the
tournaments using volunteer time but there are not yet enough revenue
to support a full-time staff.  Their goal is to start a third and
fourth event in 2008/2009 which would lend itself to a self-supporting
organization.  Your tax deductible donation would help turn their
vision of and organization that donates $15,000 per event per year to
worthy charity causes into reality.  For more information about
giving, contact Ben at 866-596-9617.